Captain Westminster's report arrived. As I have come to expect, it was detailed and comprehensive, covering her current assignment, information on cloning and providing details and images of her autopsy of the Colonel's clone. Important background information on a number of cases.
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To: Major Pepper Siamendes, UAP SIU
"My exposure to frontier medicine is full of surprises. The gentle nature of Doctor Danick was something I had never seen before, but all of her subjects are voluntary and require constant comforting and cajoling to elicit their cooperation. This is much different than the military, prison and experimental test subjects that I am accustomed to. I am not sure I am ready to put away my stungun, restraints and fast acting sedatives, but the mission is illuminating.
[Scanner, Hale's Moon]"Doctor Danick keeps detailed records and more importantly she keeps blood samples and tissue samples. I have spoken to her about starting a blood bank for the locals. I have made casual conversations about the potential lifesaving value of taking tissue samples.
"Human have over two hundred and fifty different tissue types. Contrary to popular belief, DNA is not the sole determining factor in tissue typing. Each cell's DNA interacts with its environment which plays a large role in how an organism develops. This is why clones do not always look identical.
"For example, cloned female calico cats do not look like their mothers. The color and pattern of the coats of female calico cats are not solely determined by their genes. Random inactivation of the X chromosome in every cell of the female cat determines which coat color genes are switched off and which are switched on. The random distribution of X inactivation determines the appearance of the cat's coat.
[Stasis Chamber - Research Hospital, Albion City]"Many biological phenomena are determined by random, interactive or other non-deterministic phenomenon. Which is why tissue samples are required. Simply having the DNA of the subject does not insure you can reproduce it's unique properties. Even tissue sampling is insufficient to reproduce certain special emergent phenomena such as readers.
"Hale's Moon is crawling with 'specials', I can see why Blue Sun keeps a presence there. I got a detailed full body scan of Cody Winterwolf and by luck alone I got one of his alleged sister Katherine. I will see if I can procure tissue samples at some point.
"There has been no further sightings of the Arudra drone. It seems an unlikely coincidence that the Arudra drone came to Hale just as their were having a warbot problem. Cybernetics is not my field, may I forward my few notes and observations to Doctor Qui? I am told that Doctor Qui is acquainted with some of the locals and even contributed hardware used in the failed drone program extraction from the Blue Sun synthetic cat.
[Clone in Stasis]"The Aurotharius twins are more akin to savior siblings, which are harvested from the mother (surrogate or natural) while still in early embryonic stages. The tests are inconclusive as to what stage these embryos were harvested, but probably pre-fetus stage of development.
"There is too much commonality to think that they were grown from cells. These were probably developed thru a certain level of cell differentiation in the same mother.
"Said embryos are usually stored and implanted in a surrogate Savior siblings are often harvested for their stem cells or allowed to develop further to harvest replacement tissues. If complete replacement organs are required, they are allowed to develop to full term and birth like the rest of humanity, their organs are harvested later when they're needed.
[Preliminary Strip]"Most savior siblings do not require such an exact DNA and tissue match that cloning is required, but there are extreme cases. Savior siblings that are brought to full term are usually kept in a form of stasis that allows their bodies to develop sufficiently before harvesting, but does not allow them to become conscious.
"It is peculiar that someone would raise a savior sibling as a child. There are stories of savior siblings being implanted into unsuspecting surrogates and raising them as their own children, just to be collected later when needed. It is curious to me why someone resort to such fraud when there are a lot of willing surrogates who will provide the service at a reasonable fee. The legality is not my field of expertise.
"The clone of the Colonel is very different than the Aurotharius twins. Comparing the telomere length of the Colonel to that of the clone indicates that it is based on a sample taken at least 8 years ago and probably not more than 15 years ago. The quantities of blastomeres and other cloning technology related residues indicate that the rapid growth and development processes were used.
[Cataloging]"Cloning often has probabilistic organ defects in the heart, liver and several other organs which were present in this specimen. These defects would have been detectable at an early stage and not brought to term. This was a disposable specimen probably used for harvesting or an experiment of some sort. There is a high probability that the DNA is harvested from an ordinary tissue sample and not a germline sample. Germline DNA is much less prone to defects.
"The brain development and lesions indicate that headchip training programs were probably used instead of traditional learning. It was not well developed, adding to the disposable clone theory.
"There are many indications of tissue, glandular and even cellular harvesting of the specimen. So much so that it would not have been viable outside of life support for more than a few hours and probably only a day more even with any life support short of full biostasis.
[Heading for Storage]"My theory is that this was an experimental specimen subjected to extreme harvesting for exploratory purposes, probably looking for certain results. It might have been a fast and dirty job, only harvesting one or two usable tissues, secretions or organelles per run. They also might be experimenting on a process and took samples to evaluate their progress."
Captain Westminster, UAP SIU
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